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The “Development” Factor (1)

I
remember my last week in Belgium, just a couple of years ago, I was sitting on
a taxi, crossing through one the unmistakable traffic jams of the European
capital lost on my thoughts when the Taxi driver suddenly broke
the silence by asking me if I was living in Belgium or just visiting. I just
answered him I was living there but not for long, not interested on telling the whole story about the reason why I was leaving. Then, I was just shocked by his next words: “I’m
happy you are not staying here for long, in Europe there is no future”. I just
started wondering why this man, someone that had apparently been hosted in
Europe and managed to have a decent way of earning his life, was so negative.

It
just took me a couple of days to realize that was not a single case, what
this man told me summarized the whole state of mind of the European citizen
deepened with pesimism. The word “crisis”, “fear” was just part of
this contagious illness spreading out without borders. At that moment, I just
decided I wanted to be outside the “bubble”, at least temporarily, to
appreciate the real dimension of the problem. Since Europe couldn’t offer me that, I focused
all my interest on having an experience “in the field” in a developing country
in order to have a vision from outside the box.

Two years later, here I am in Morocco,
next week, it’s going to be my fifth month on this country and I can’t be more
thankful. The experience I am getting here is not only about learning from
other cultures or discovering the hidden treasures of this wonder land along
with all its problems, but it’s basically about adapting myself to a different
way of living than no other developed country could have offered me. Since It’s hard to summarize on a single word
all I have learnt so far, I just decided to create one expression based on the
incredible book of John
Carlin: “The Human factor”, I would call it the “Development” Factor. The Development factor just represents a
combination of all those biased views, that altogether make you part of this abstract
concept called the “First World”. In this first article I will talk about how I
have learned to deal with those feelings. The second part will be based on
other examples and the possible drawbacks of getting used to that.

The incapacity to deal with the unpredictable:

Well,
that might sound pretty obvious, but in Europe unpredictability is associated
with risk, and despite all this pro-entrepreneurship
propaganda over and over again on social media, the truth is still there: If
you have the choice, nobody wants to deal with the unpredictable. In a country
like Morocco, where the average salary is around 300 Euros/month with no social
insurance and hardly any social services, you can’t even have that choice. The
famous motto “live the present, because nobody knows what is going to happen
tomorrow” takes here a much more dramatic meaning. I remember asking myself
when I was a kid, why that many Moroccans took the car to go back home in summer,
it took me time to realize the sacrifice of paying an “airplane ticket” for
much more than 100 Euros in many cases, something in Europe we wouldn’t even
consider with the hard competition among “low-cost” airlines. The importance of health is another factor,
when you take into consideration that the cost of a medical treatment can reach
half of the whole salary you get for a month. Therefore, going to the hospital is
only done on extreme cases, and basic cares are not always known by most of the
population. In that case, we were more than pleased to finance the treatment of the woman working with us. The same can be said in a positive way. When visiting Tetuan, I had been told this city was known for drug dealers and the revolutionary spirit of "Rif" Region. Tetuan was much more than that, a city full a history with the incredible legacy of "moriscos" andalusi art. as the landlord of our Riad told us: "Every spanish city has a quarter called Tetuan, but nobody knows where Tetuan really is". The possibility to attend a concert in the middle of the Medina with our friend Mohammed without even expecting it was certainly a unique experience.

Moroccan Ftor "Brunch". A great way of wasting your time.

2. There is nothing worse than wasting
your time:

The
time concept is really relative and it varies according to each culture. From a
“westerner” point of view, time which is non productive, it’s wasted. As a
consequence, wasting your time is not only something you must avoid by all means
but it’s also economically counterproductive. The equation that Time=Money is
not exactly like that in every country. I still remember one of the commercial
agenda I prepared for a Spanish company visiting Morocco. Two weeks before the date, they were anxious
about the final outcome of the meetings: “You know, I think you need to rush,
there are only 5 meetings and just 10 days left”. In order to reduce the rising
panic, I just told them than in Morocco, there is no way to plan anything in
advance, so they would need to wait until the very last day to have all the
meetings confirmed.

When
the date arrived, I noticed they were a bit disappointed and complained about
the lack of time to prepare the meetings”, I couldn’t do anything but wish them
the best luck for the Agenda. During their stay, two meetings were cancelled due
to unpredicted “business travel”, two were added due to a sudden interest coming
out of the blue, and two had to be rescheduled just an hour before the set time.
That experience just showed them that they couldn’t handle this market just as
if they were in Germany and next time, they would definitely come to Morocco
with another approach.

The same happened in a local bar,
after having a delicious brunch at 1 PM in a sunny terrace and waiting for the bill to come for
more than two hours. After several times asking for it, the waiter finally came
and said “Well you need to go the counter
and it’s Sunday man, What else would you like to do?” In that situation,
any complain would have been useless, it was just a matter of perception; they
didn’t think we were in a hurry.

Conference on Smart cities and Marque Maroc

3. Small achievements for you can be
huge for someone else:

Since
I have been in Morocco, I have learned to put everything “into context”,
meaning the standard you might use to criticise something that is not working
in your own country can’t be done in the same way here. For example, I did notice, especially among
expats, (yes a smart way to call white immigrants”) a certain trend that
consisted of complaining about everything such as traffic, recycling, education
or even religion as long as it doesn’t meet our European standards. However
something that doesn’t work according to European standards can be a “work in
process” according to local standards.

A
couple of weeks ago, I attended a seminar on smart cities, and someone responsible for the local government talked
about the massive investment that had been carried out in the last five years
in order to promote E-Administration.

One
of the main successful projects was the existence since 2015 of the first
online service to have a doctor appointment online. That would reduce the time
spent on long queues and fight against existing corruption. I had the thought.”Well,
that’s not such a big achievement; in Europe we have had that for the last 20
years”. But I was absolutely wrong, and didn’t seize the importance of this
change. The same happened with a local school that offered in his advertisement
for next year that for the first time, they would offer “private transportation”
for all his students making possible to bring all the kids back home after
classes.

All
those experiences just showed me why sometimes it’s important to change your
glasses when you go somewhere else, and the “development” factor can usually be an inconvenient if you don’t place things into context. That was just the
first part of the article, on the next one I will keep describing some of those
situations and analyse the possible drawbacks.

¿What
are your experiences on that? I am looking forward to hear from you all: